


Three Times I Love You

by staymagical



Series: Keithtober 2019 [19]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And love, Angst, Battle, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Except you know Klance, M/M, Major Character Injury, Near Death, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 04:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21155615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staymagical/pseuds/staymagical
Summary: Keith doesn’t even register anything is amiss until he gets shot in the stomach.“I don’t know,” Keith says, breathless with exertion and choking fear. He weaves and dodges through the open land, trying to make himself a difficult target. “He was covering me and then he just wasn’t.”





	Three Times I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Keithtober Day 22: Battle

Keith doesn’t even register anything is amiss until he gets shot in the stomach.

The blast blazes through the vulnerable undersuit on his abdomen to scorch the skin beneath and he yelps in surprise more than in pain as he staggers back. But damn, it does burn something fierce. And fear strikes right through his heart. 

Because if the snipers and distance fighters are no longer distracted enough to get a shot off at him, that can only mean one thing.

Lance’s position is compromised.

“Lance?” Keith calls through the comms, his tone sharp with concern. He can hear the distant noises from the others still engaged in their own battles and missions but he tunes them out, seeking one specific voice. A voice that isn’t responding. Keith’s fear increases. “Lance?! Love, answer me!”

The large hulking Galra he’s fighting takes advantage of his momentary lapse in focus and swings his massive sword at Keith’s head.

Adrenaline spiking, Keith immediately drops and rolls as the blade sings through the air above him. He doesn’t waste a moment of the Galra’s exposed side and runs his blade through flesh and bone. The Galra crumples with merely a grunt.

But Keith doesn’t stick around to watch him hit to the ground. More blasts whiz past his head and kick up the dirt around his feet as he sprints over to the rock formation Lance had been using as a vantage point. 

Keith takes a graze to the arm with a hiss as Hunk’s voice breaks through over comms. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Keith says, breathless with exertion and choking fear. He weaves and dodges through the open land, trying to make himself a difficult target. “He was covering me and then he just wasn’t.”

And he’s not entirely sure where it all went wrong. They had done this a million times on missions before, Keith running off into the fray of things while Lance expertly covered his back. Both utilizing their dominant skills and working together seamlessly because Lance was right, they did make a great team. An excellent, well oiled, perfectly-balanced team. 

So where had it gone wrong?

Finally, Keith closes the last few feet and skids around the corner of the rock formation, a plume of dust in his wake. 

It’s a sight he knows he’ll never forget. Lance is sprawled in the dirt, head turned away toward the larger rock face and utterly still. But the brief splattering of red near his head and on his helmet steals the air from Keith’s lungs with dizzying terror.

And the galra above Lance, gun in hand, poised to blast him through where he lays vulnerable, is just icing on this horrific painting.

Keith doesn’t even remember moving. All he knows is that one moment fear and rage are clenching his heart in a painful grip and the next the galra is drowning in a pool of his own blood a good ten feet from where Lance lays.

Time shifts back into place with the screams of cruisers and the sharp sting of blasts chipping at the rock face. Keith rolls to his knees beside Lance and down behind the shelter of the rock, out of sight of the galra’s blasts.

“Lance is down! I need backup over here!” He knows he’s yelling, that fear has notched his voice up two octaves and the cracks are evident, but he doesn’t care. Lance is injured, maybe even mortally so and Keith has no patience to waste on such frivolous things like controlling his panic. 

Lance may very well be dying.

Because up close, Keith can truly see the extent of the damage. 

The usually blue and white helmet is scorched black across the right upper half with a larger concentration focused around the ugly spider webbing that remains of his visor. Blood is splattered on the inside of the shattered visor just above Lance’s right eye, flecks seeping in between the cracks like some grotesque abstract painting.

Through the comms, Keith can hear the rest of the team talking over one another with a barrage of questions and concerns of their own. He blocks them out, not able to focus on anything but the still form of Lance.

“Lance?” he asks, tone edging on complete panic. He removes one of his gloves and works two fingers in where Lance’s gloves meet his bodysuit, trying to find a pulse.

It takes too long, much too long. But eventually, Keith feels the beat of a pulse, faint but steady. Alive. Keith can work with that. 

After checking his body quickly for any other injuries, Keith carefully gives Lance’s shoulder a nudge, making sure not to jostle his head too much. There’s no telling if any metal or shards are cutting into him inside the helmet and he doesn’t want to risk causing him further harm.

Lance doesn’t respond, his eyes closed, face slack. “Come on, don’t do this, love,” Keith begs, giving another harder nudge. His eyes burn with threatening tears. “Please Lance, come back to me.” 

Desperate, Keith reaches up under the broken shards of the helmet and gently taps at Lance’s cheek. Once, twice, three times.

_ Three times I love you _

_ Three times as much. _

Lance’s whole body jerks then and his eyes fly open with a gasp.

“There you are.”

Lance blinks then blinks again, his brow furrowed in pain and confusion like he can’t quite figure out where he is or what he is doing there. Dread is a weighted stone in Keith’s stomach.

“Keith! Status!” Shiro’s panicked voice filters through the static filling Keith’s head, biting with desperation. And Keith remembers he’s not the only one battling fear right now.

The team is all still there, waiting for him to respond.

Keith, trying to hold himself together with mere adrenaline and hope, responds, “He’s alive but he took a nasty blast to the head—no Lance, stay still—Helmet is cracked and comms are shot but he’s awake and breathing and trying to talk with a goddamn hole in his head.”

Lance’s lips open, working to speak, jaw struggling with movement until finally, he manages a pained wordless exhale of “Keith—”

And Keith  _ shatters _ .

Tears fall freely down his cheeks even as he tries to will them away. This is not the time to fall apart, not now in the midst of a battle, not when Lance is  _ dying _ . 

It’s not over until Lance breathes his last. 

Which will not be today.

“Don’t worry, love. I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.” Keith slips an arm under Lance’s back, trying to ignore the tensing of muscles and pained whimper that escapes Lance’s lips as he sits him up. His head, he needs to watch his head. “Just hang in there,” he pleads.

Because he’s not sure what he would do without Lance. How he would cope with losing half of himself. To have to wake up in a cold bed, empty and devoid of the warmth that usually surrounds him. To never hear those god awful pickup lines that never fail to bring a smile to his face. To not feel the three taps to his hand, shoulder, arm, anywhere on his body as Lance silently voices his love through touch.

_ Three times I love you. _

“I’m getting him out of here,” Keith says into the comms, somehow hoisting Lance into a staggering standing position, careful to keep his head steady as best he can.

“Copy,” Shiro responds and Keith spots the black lion flying toward them, blasting a line through the ground forces as they go. “I’ve got you covered.”

Everything is a blur after that. Red is there in a heartbeat before Keith can even send out a call to her, having already sensed his distress and headed his way. It’ a struggle getting Lance aboard, his body growing heavier the longer they stay upright. Keith knows that’s not good, that Lance is losing his battle with unconsciousness, but there’s not much he can do. He just needs to focus on getting them back to the castle and Lance into a pod and  _ healed _ .

Somewhere between leaving the planet’s atmosphere and landing back on the castle of lions, Lance passes out. He’s slumped and lifeless as Keith launches himself out of the pilot seat once the land and desperately searches for a pulse.

A pulse he can’t find.

Then Coran is there and Allura with a stretcher and they whisk Lance away to the medical ward, Keith right beside him. But he’s numb, aching throughout his body with the realization that  _ he has no pulse, he’s dead, he’s gone _ sinking in.

“Keith. Keith listen to me!” And then Allura is there, her body blocking his view of Lance as Coran tries to carefully remove the shattered helmet. He blinks, then blinks again before finally locking onto her. “He’s not dead,” she assures him. Her tone is fierce, determined and confident. “There’s still a chance.”

Her words are like taking a breath after being underwater for so long. His world comes back into focus, color sharpening and the clink of metal on metal as the helmet is discarded.

And then Lance finally loaded into a pod and all Keith can do is wait.

Coran patches him up the old-fashioned way because Keith refuses to go into a pod for fear of missing Lance. Missing his death, missing his return, he’s not quite sure. But his fear keeps him beside the pod, even when his exhaustion begs him to sleep and his mind rolls through all the worse case scenarios he can think of. 

The rest of the team return a little while after they did, a few bumps and bruises here and there but no worse for wear. They join Keith and sit vigil by Lance’s pod until their own exhaustion drags them off to their rooms one by one. 

Keith stays. 

He watches.

He waits.

He cries and hopes and begs and pleads.

And when that is all said and done, he taps in thrice on the glass of the pod. Over and over and over hoping that, no matter what the outcome, Lance knows he is there. Knows that he never left his side. Knows that he is and will forever be loved.

And when three movements later, the pod opens with a hiss and deposits a limp but very much alive Lance in Keith’s waiting arms, he voices his heart’s song.

“I love you,” Keith murmurs into Lance’s neck, breathing him in, soaking up his presence.

Lance’s croaked, “I love you too,” leaves him breathless and tears streaming down his face.

Because Lance is here, whole and  _ alive _ . 

After Coran does a secondary check-up to ensure there’s no lasting damage to his head or brain, Keith leads Lance down the hall to their shared room. He fills the tub with hot steaming water, adding a few of those sweet-smelling oils that Lance loves so much. Then he slowly peels off the layers of the battle, massaging love and tenderness into Lance’s body, washing away the fear and anguish, pain and sorrow from both their hearts.

And finally they lay down in their bed, safely ensconced in each other’s arms, tapping thrice into warm skin.

_ Three times I love you. _

_ Three times as much. _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Check out my Instagram for more Klance and VLD drabbles and short fics: [staymagwrites](https://www.instagram.com/staymagwrites/)


End file.
